


Cage the Wind

by Laylah



Category: Magna Carta 2
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Missing Scene, Power Dynamics, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2010-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is not his master, but he wants to obey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cage the Wind

The cell is furnished richly, and the meals brought down for her are the same served in the banquet hall, but that does nothing to negate the simple fact of the iron bars. The princess is not a guest here.

Claire mocked him for it, but Elgar keeps a vigil outside the cell anyway. His duty is to make sure that no harm comes to the princess. She is safe here, untouchable, but he feels better when he can be near her, can see her.

At first she wept, collapsed on the bed in her cell, and that was unsettling -- nobody else's tears have ever affected Elgar, but hers made him agitated, frustrated with the need to do _something_ and the uncertainty about what that something was.

When she finished weeping, she slept briefly, waking when a meal was brought to her. The guard bringing the tray was gruff, rude, though he remembered his manners after Elgar took an interest in his behavior. He made his apologies and left the princess to her supper; Elgar turned his back to allow her privacy while she ate.

"You're still here," she says eventually. Elgar turns, and sees that she has pushed away the tray, though the food is barely half gone.

"There is nowhere else I should be," he says.

"No?" she asks. "No more of my people to kill?"

Elgar shakes his head. "That was never my real purpose," he says. "My duty is to keep you from harm."

"Of course," the princess says. She sounds scornful. She turns away, paces the length of her cell, turns back abruptly. It looks as though she's trembling.

That leaves him unsettled, too. She is not being harmed. He is not failing his orders. Why does he feel so uncomfortable?

"Come here," she says, pacing back to the bars.

She is not his master, but he wants to obey. "I can't release you," he says. He hopes she doesn't ask. Her distress upsets him too much, but he would be forced to refuse.

"No," she says. "You can't disobey him, can you?"

"You saw what happened when First tried," he says, and regrets it when that makes her flinch.

The princess curls a hand around one of the bars of her cell, as if it will steady her. Elgar comes to stand in front of her, and she studies his face, watching him as if she is trying to catch sight of his eyes through his visor. "All this time, I've thought you were my enemy," she says.

Elgar can't decide how she means that. "I am the enemy of your allies," he says.

"I wouldn't call Alex my ally anymore," the princess says wryly. Count Alex isn't the only one Elgar means, but he doesn't argue. He's learned that it's often better not to complicate things by explaining himself.

The princess leans closer, nearly but not quite pressed up against the bars. They're spaced widely enough for her to slip an arm between them, and she does, reaching her hand toward Elgar's face. He flinches back, and she stills.

"Are you afraid of me?" she says. It sounds like she can't believe it.

Elgar shakes his head once. "I know better than to think you're harmless," he says.

"I'm flattered," she says, and she sounds a little bitter but perhaps not only bitter. "My weapons have been taken from me. No Kan flows this far indoors. And I never mastered my...other power."

Anyone else admitting such weakness would be contemptible, but she -- he doesn't know what to call this feeling. He steps closer to the bars. "What do you want from me?" he asks.

The princess takes a shaky breath; there's a softness to her expression that unnerves him. "I'm frightened," she says. She reaches out again, and this time he doesn't move. She lays her hand against the side of his face, not -- not doing anything, only touching him. Her hand is warm. "I have no friends here."

Elgar nods. He should leave, he's sure. Her sadness makes him want to disobey orders, makes him want to smash the lock on her cell and -- pain lances through his chest, reminding him of the price he'd pay. "I can't be anyone's friend," he says.

"No, I suppose not," the princess says, but not angrily. She strokes his cheek, slides her fingertips further back to trace the tight rows of his braids. "You're caged just as securely as I am, aren't you?"

"That's --" _ridiculous_ , he almost says, but if he makes her angry she'll stop touching him. It's all right to want her to keep touching him, isn't it? That...isn't disobedient. Her nails run lightly down the nape of his neck and he shudders all over. Nothing makes him feel like this, almost panicked but craving more. "I can't help you," he says. He sounds hoarse. He barely recognizes his own voice.

"You can keep me company," the princess says. She slides her hand upward to cup his face again, and he leans into her helplessly.

"I can," he says. He reaches out, curls a hand around one of the bars, steps as close as he can. How has she made him so unbalanced?

Her touch is...kind, too gentle to have done this to him. But he can't resist.


End file.
